


Icarus

by Seraphina (AnxiousCoffee)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, There will be violence so uh beware, Uhhh more tags to come when I can actually think of any that won't give spoilers, super powers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:26:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29785737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnxiousCoffee/pseuds/Seraphina
Summary: "You have to run... get out of here. I know, I told you not to, but we have no choice. Go to them, they can help you.""Once you're there... you must put a stop to.. all this madness. Or else... I fear this world will come to an end.""You are this world's last chance to survive."Nine kids. One adult. They're this world's last hope.Not that I knew that in the beginning. I didn't even know most of them in the first place. Little did I know that I was soon to be dragged into a world of violence and danger to help save our world before it's too late.
Kudos: 3





	1. Hero boy

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> My name is Seraphina, but y'all can call me Sera. I've had this story on my mind for a while and decided that the best way for me to develop it is to share it with other people.  
> Hopefully you enjoy it, but that's okay if you don't.

I don't think I've ever heard of a stranger way to meet your soon to be classmates than how I did. Not that I knew they were my classmates at the time though.

Hi. My name is Leilah Hart and I'm fourteen years old. And for the first time ever, on Friday 22nd March 3032, I overslept my alarm for school.  
"Leilah, is today not a school today?" my mother calls from outside my door. Her voice is hesitant, almost as if she isn't sure I want to hear her. I dont blame her. Things have been rather... rocky, since the incident.  
I curse under my breath and roll out from under the covers.  
My room is pretty simple, wooden floorboards, walls and ceiling painted to resemble a galaxy. Glow in the dark stickers clutter the ceilings and walls, creating constellations, whilst the main light above my desk is a big moon sphere hanging from the ceiling. A spaced themed bed, white desk, and wardrobe, as well as a stack of art and photography supplies occupy corners of the room, leaving the centre of the room clear for a fluffy, dark blue rug.  
I dress in a hurry and rush out of the door without breakfast, slamming the gate behind me. My house is bordered by thick trees on each side, except the front, the nearest house being nearly two hundred yards away. There's a road coming out of the gate, wide enough to fit one car, maybe two if both drivers were willing to drive a little on the grass. Aside from the openings where houses are placed, the road is also bordered by thick trees.  
I run straight ahead, crashing through those trees and into woods I know like the back of my hand. It's easy to spot the bright yellow landmark ribbons I've been using for over ten years now. Another hundred and fifty yards of woods separates my house from the nearest road, which thankfully, is the road where my school is.  
There are only two schools in the neighbourhood, one for kids aged nine and under, another for kids aged ten to eighteen. If anyone plans to go to university, they have to find one in the city.  
The two school buildings are set fifty yards apart. The school for younger children, Penshaw Elementary, is only two floors with a spacious playground and welcoming banners. Penshaw High on the other hand, looks a lot more foreboding on the outside. It's four stories tall, also with spacious outdoor area, although it's mostly concrete outside compared to the grass in Elementary.  
I'm out of breath by the time I burst out of the woods, and jog the last fifty or so yards up to the school and inside.  
My seat is near the back of the classroom by the window, and I take it less than a minute before our teacher, Mr Allon, walks into the room to take the register. I'm momentarily surprised when I hear that Zack isn't in, before I remember he's been home sick all week.  
Mr Allon sets down the register and begins our history lesson. It's on the 2430 Regression. Practically nobody is paying attention to his rambling voice, and he doesn't take notice. After all, we've learned the same topic over and over at least once a year since we were six. I opt for staring out of the window, filtering the sound of Mr Allon's voice out until it's only a slight murmur in the background.

Our town is quite a small one, on the outskirts of the city. It's the type of town where everyone knows everyone and if you want your privacy, you're better off keeping secrets well hidden and unspoken of.  
It's a blanket of thick grass, bordered on three sides by forest in a sort of wavy circle. There's a lake on the north side, a mile or two away from the city hall. We have a square of land dedicated to shops located in the rough centre of town, surrounded by houses and small farms. Compared to most of the towns on the outskirts of the city, it's relatively small, but not the complete smallest. My house is located on the east side of town, same as the schools.  
"-eilah? Leilah!"  
One of my classmates taps my back and gestures towards the front of the classroom, where I'm met with the knowing smile of Mr Allon. Suddenly, I'm very glad he's one of the more forgiving teachers.  
"As Miss Leilah has kindly demonstrated for us, I doubt most of you are listening."  
His words turn my cheeks red and I turn to face the window again, ignoring the quiet snickers I can hear.  
"Since this is all something we've heard a million times over, I'll cut the lesson short. A paragraph explaining the Regression should be more than enough."  
The entire class groans, but doesn't complain any more than that, knowing that a single paragraph is much less than what they usually make us write. I tune out the rambling of my next two teachers as we switch classrooms, walking in a sort of daze.  
When the bell rings for lunch, there's a collective sigh of relief from all the students. I waste no time in standing up and grabbing my bag. The corridor is just as crowded as usual, as the younger students rush for the cafeteria and more open spaces of the playground whilst the older teens take to the corners of the hallways and the enclosed spaces outside.  
I've become accustomed to weaving through the dense crowds, but even so, when I feel a hand against my back, propelling me forward, I can't help but panic a little. Thankfully, I manage to catch myself before I face plant into the floor, and turn around to glare at whoever it was that pushed me.  
"Could you move? You're in my way."  
A familiar face and sneering voice are what I'm met with. Blonde hair tied up in a tight high ponytail, blue eyes, with a shirt that barely covers her stomach and tight blue jeans. Layered makeup thicker than the crust of this Earth, long patterned nails that remind me of claws, and tinted sunglasses resting on her nose.  
Half of the crowd comes to a standstill as head cheerleader Andrea stares at me with distaste. My stomach turns, knowing I used to be exactly like that. I turn around and walk away slowly, ignoring her shouts to come back and apologize for being in her way. I have to go before her boyfriend, Mark, decides to show up and throw a few punches at her stupid cries.

The roof is my favourite place in the school. It's quiet, away from the crowds, and a place where I can think. Not many other people venture up here, seeing as the school janitor will usually chase you off with a broom. Speaking of which, I wave as said school janitor, Mr Jones, pokes his head around the corner and smiles. Turns out being friendly has its perks after all.  
I reach for my lunch in my bag, before remembering that I don't actually have any lunch since I woke up late. I console myself with the knowledge that I'll be going into the city later with my best friend, Emily. We can probably find a cafe to eat lunch. I zone out and stare across the top of the trees until the lunch bell rings.  
The rest of the day is pretty uneventful and before I know it, the last lesson is over and every student is making a mad dash for the door. It's a lot easier to wait for everyone to leave first instead of getting crushed, so I stand at the back and watch the clock above the door slowly tick away.  
Emily is waiting outside the classroom for me, dark brown hair flowing down to her mid back. She's wearing a skirt and a plain purple shirt, bag swung over one shoulder and phone in hand. We're in different classes, so we only share one or two lessons.  
"You ready to go?" she asks.  
I nod and we leave the school. Emily's dad is waiting outside for us in a pickup truck. It's a modified one, blue paint with a slightly larger back than usual, high sides, and benches in the back. Emily's friend Sarah and her boyfriend Jake are sitting in the back. We wave to the two as we approach.  
I give Emily a boost up and grab Jake's hands as I step on one of the tires to climb in myself. Emily's dad, Noah, greets us cheerily, and we start the sixty mile drive into the city. It takes about an hour and a half to get there and by the time we arrive, all four of us are vibrating with excitement.  
I pull out my phone to briefly text my mom that we made it safely, and should be back by late evening.  
The city is massive. Trips here are rare, considering how far it is, but all the parents in town usually come together every year to make sure we can visit at least once. Emily's dad just so happened to have some business to be done here today, and we were lucky enough to be brought along.  
The buildings range from old concrete and stone, to more sophisticated buildings made of an artificial white metal called diamond plating. You can see modern, spacious offices through some of the clearer glass windows, whilst others are tinted and impossible to see through. The streets are busy, but not insanely crowded.  
There's nowhere to park, so Emily's dad pulls into a deserted side street and we all jump out. Emily has her phone held up and I breathe a quiet sigh of delight when I see that she has map directions to a nearby cafe. We turn off the side street to be hit with a wave of foreign sounds, sights and smells.  
The roads are all smooth paved concrete, even white lines marking the lanes. The air is clean and sweet, nothing like the air described in the history books when pollution was one of the world's biggest problems. Cars clog the streets in a flash, followed by honking and angry yells, disappearing just as suddenly when lights turn green.  
We stop at a zebra crossing. There's a mother and her son playing with a ball to our left and three men to our right.  
What happens next is so sudden I'm not even sure what I'm seeing at first. There's the slight hissing sound of the boy's inflatable ball hitting the street, and over the sound of a car approaching at high speed, I hear the footsteps of the little boy that ball belongs to chasing after it.  
My heart forces its way into my mouth as I instinctively run out after the child. I grab him and kick the ball out of the way. There isn't enough time to run out of the way but if I turn my back and shield him he shouldn't be injured too bad-  
A pair of hands grab my waist and a rush of air escapes my lungs as I fly through the air hit the ground. Everything turns quiet, as if time has completely stopped. My knees and elbows burn and the kid in my arms screams furiously. I hear the sickening thud of metal hitting flesh and the screams of onlookers as sound forces its way into my ears again. I'm almost too scared to look behind me.  
I see another person lying thirty feet away from me on their front, unmoving. They must've run out from the other side of the road and flung us out of the way. Are they... dead? My stomach turns as the thought comes to mind. A few seconds later though, the stranger sits up, groaning.  
He's close enough for me to hear the quiet, "Holy fuck that hurt." as pedestrians swarm the road. I hand the screaming boy to his mother as two people help me up. Jake comes running, Emily and Sarah a few feet behind.  
The one who saved me I now notice, is a boy. He has dark blue, almost black, hair, and is skinny and quite a lot taller than me. He's wearing a black leather jacket and jeans, both of which have torn at the elbows and knees. The front of his shirt has torn open too, revealing pale white skin stretched over tight muscles, and what looks like a tatoo just poking out from under ruined cloth.  
"I'm fine, I don't need an ambulance," he insists to the people crowded around him. It's almost as if he has yet to take notice of the blood oozing out from his arms and legs, not to mention the horrendous scrapes on his front. He pushes through the crowd and approaches me.  
"You okay?" he asks. I nod mutely, seeing as my voice isn't willing to cooperate.  
"Sorry for tossing you back there. You're bleeding."  
I stare at him in disbelief.  
"O-okay one, you saved my life just then. A-and two, you're bleeding more!" I exclaim. He looks down at himself with a calm expression.  
"So I am," is all that he says. He says something else, but his voice is drowned out by the sound of a motorbike approaching. I can't see the face of this new stranger. He's wearing a black motorcycle helmet, blue jeans, and a white hoodie, but hero boy seems to know him.  
"You were brave, trying to save that kid. Try not to almost die if you ever do it again."  
I don't even get the chance to respond before he climbs onto the back of the motorcycle and they're gone. I'm left speechless. It must have been one of the strangest encounters I've ever had to this day.  
When we get to the cafe, one of the waitresses there offers to patch me up. She's really nice, white haired and blue eyed. The name on her tag, Wynter, really suits her. Everything about her reminds me of delicate snowflakes and the beautiful quiet of winter.  
We take a seat and order our food. Emily and Sarah are looking over one of the latest fashion magazines while we wait, whilst Jake seems to be on the phone with his father. I take the time to look around instead.  
There are people in here, but it isn't crowded. A family occupies a table three spaces over from ours and a pair of teenagers are drinking milkshakes at the counter. There's another boy with honey coloured hair sitting a table over from ours, yelling at someone to hurry up.  
Wynter arrives at our table with the food. Jake pulls out his wallet to pay, but she shakes her head and smiles. "They said it's on them," she explains. My eyes follow the direction she's pointing in.  
I cover my smile with a hand when I see the boy who saved me is now sitting with the other boy who was sitting alone before. He's got bandages on his elbows and knees that are still visible through the rips in his clothes, and seems to have found a replacement shirt. They appear to be arguing over their drinks, but he spares a moment to grin and wave at me before snatching one of the paper cups, just as his friend lunges for it.  
"You should totally go thank him for saving you or something," Emily suggests.  
"You could probably get his number too," Sarah adds on, grinning.  
I swat at her hand and laugh.  
"I'm not asking for his number!"  
"Come on, his friend is totally your type!"  
"I'm not asking for either of their numbers!"  
"...Fine. Party pooper."  
We stay for another half hour to finish our food. Truthfully, I do want to go up to hero boy and thank him, but he seems to be having an important conversation with the waiter, Wynter, and judging by their serious faces, now would not be a good time to interrupt. I wonder if they know each other outside of this cafe. I lose my chance to say anything when he and his friend leave a minute later, drinks in hand.  
Hero boy stays on my mind for the rest of our trip, even as Emily and Sarah drag me into shops to try on new outfits. By the time we're picked up and dropped home, I'm tired and hungry.  
The front door is unlocked, and I open it quietly, not wanting to alert my mom that I'm home. She's in the kitchen, so I have no choice but to pass her if I want to get something to eat. Just my luck that she's in there, cleaning the dishes.  
"Welcome home Leilah."  
I'm almost tempted to ignore her.  
"...hi."  
The tension in the air is thick and I move quickly to grab a bowl of cereal.  
"You should eat something proper for dinner, there's rice in-"  
"I'm fine. I'm not that hungry."  
She nods sadly and I leave the room as quickly as possible. Now isn't the time to be thinking about that.


	2. Number Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all, I'm back with more. I'm looking forward to be able to write more of this story, so enjoy!

POV of: ??

I've had a lot of names during my life, but my real name is Number Nine. It's a strange name, isn't it?

"Have you chosen yet, Nine? Twelve has already chosen his."  
Nineteen turns around to look at me. We're in a car, heading down a road further and further away from the city. They haven't found us yet, but we'd been staying in the previous town for too long.  
My last name was pretty simple, James Park. I decide to go for a slightly quirkier name this time, and spend a few minutes drifting through the archives of names in my mind, trying to decide.  
"Isen. My name will be Isen."  
"Great. Twelve is Jay, and I'll be Neo."  
I smile. Nineteen, or, Neo now, turns the car down another road. We continue that way for another fifteen miles, driving under the cover of night.  
A new town means new names, a new home, new school and new people to meet. My thoughts drift wistfully back to the old town we lived in. I have yet to make my first real friend. It's too risky to have friends.  
You get attached and they can be used. Or they could find out our secret. Friends make you trip up. You put down your guard around them and it could cost your life. Friends still have the capacity for betrayal. That's what's been drilled into my mind for more years than I care to count.  
Tw- Jay, I need to start getting used to these new names, falls asleep twenty minutes before we get there. He's the youngest of us at thirteen, and certainly knows how to act like it. Even the most simple things about this world still fascinate him.  
We reach the new town not much later. There's a billboard on the outside with an odd cartoon cow, holding up a sign that says 'Welcome to Penshaw! We hope you enjoy your stay!'. Its eyes make me shudder, but Neo laughs when I point it out.  
There's a main road leading into the town, but he turns the car down a side road I almost didn't notice. We make a kind of almost U turn that leads us a little diagonally away from the town, and reach the house a few minutes later. It's isolated, and on the very far outskirts of town. There's a hill shielding us from the view of the rest of the town, and according to Neo, there are no houses for a good two or three miles.  
The house itself is old. Two stories high and made of sturdy wood. Moss has overtaken some patches of wood and there are two boarded up windows that need to be fixed. There's a spacious backyard with high wooden fences, perfect for practising in, and a small garage that I knew would become Neo's workshop.  
We stop the car and I cautiously shake Jay awake. It's not usually a good outcome when one of us is startled. We open the door and explore before anything. Neo is doing the usual, checking for bugs or listening devices, whilst Jay runs a mile back down the road to check if we've been followed. I grab a grill and some meat from the back of the car and start making burgers for dinner.  
We eat outside once the two of them are done with their checks, deciding to sleep in a quickly pitched tent so we can clean the house out tomorrow.

When I wake up, I'm met with the dark blue fabric of the inside of the tent. Jay has completely flopped onto me, whilst Neo is curled up on the other side of the tent. He reminds me of a cat, and it makes me snicker. I carefully climb out of the tent and check the time. 8am. The landlady said she would be here at 10.  
I make breakfast, sausages this time. The other two emerge at some point to eat. The landlady arrives at 10am on the dot, in a black car. She introduces herself as Mrs Shantaye Hart and then pulls Neo over to one side to talk.  
It isn't hard to hear their conversation, even from the other side of the clearing, as they clear up paperwork and rent payment and god knows what else. I hear something about the window fitter being ill and unable to come by for a while, and then Neo reassuring her that we can fit the glass inside ourselves.  
"When my other little brother arrives, I'll be leaving. If my siblings decide to get into any trouble, please feel free to give me a call and I'll come as soon as possible," he adds as Mrs Hart begins to say her goodbyes.  
"Oh I'm sure that won't be necessary. Look at these two angels, making breakfast and helping unpack."  
I almost want to laugh. Little brother my ass. It's a good cover story for what we can really do though. I doubt many people would want us around. We would be freaks of nature to them.  
The rest of the morning is spent cleaning the house. Neo takes care of the dusting, for the most part. A flick of his fingers and wind comes gusting through the open windows to sweep it all out.  
Now, you might think that I'm just exaggerating or joking, but that's literally what happened. See, we aren't the most normal of people. We have special abilities, super powers as most humans would call them. One of Neo's powers is the ability to create and control wind.  
Jay has a bucket of water with him and as he waves his hand, the water rises out of the bucket in a big bubble and wipes across the glass surfaces and floors, coming back dirty. He throws it into a patch of grass and leaves to retrieve more water.  
Next, is my part. I press my palms to the ground of the house. Heat emanates from them and steam rises off the floor, which Neo gets rid of with more wind. It's one of my more recently developed powers, to be able to heat up a certain area around me.  
They usually start developing around the age of six and can take years for all of your abilities to show. Neo is eighteen and we still think he has more abilities yet to show.  
As soon as we finish cleaning we start moving in our things. We don't have much, considering there are times where we have to pack in a rush. It's only the necessities, and we leave things we can easily purchase again behind in the old houses.  
Jay and I carry out a bunch of sophisticated monitors and computers. He picks things up quickly with his enhanced intelligence, and is now smarter than most of us. He also knows how to hack like a complete computer geek, spending at least two hours a day combing through the internet for any trace of our existence being leaked.  
We're done unpacking in under an hour, which leaves us time to go into town and buy some food and new clothes for 'Neo's little brother'.  
It's a weird thing to watch happen. We gather in the main room.  
Seeing as his clothes would fall off anyway after this, he's only wearing a pair of leggings, revealing well developed muscles that I'm secretly very jealous of stretched over milky pale skin, and dozens of scars crisscrossing it.  
Jay averts his eyes, face twisted into a sad grimace. Most of those scars aren't from our time spent on the run. Neo has never bothered to tell us where they came from and we've never asked.  
I turn my attention back to his face, which is twisted in momentary concentration. After a few seconds, his body starts to morph and shrink. The scars become smooth skin and his hair goes from its usual messy stuck up dark blue to slightly straighter and half covering one eye. His eye colour shifts from the usual almost nebula like colouring of mixed blues and purples, and becomes a darker, almost black colour. He's a little under a foot shorter than his normal height of 188cm.  
Watching Neo shapeshift is one of the strangest things I can think of. A power he discovered in a freak accident where he nearly drowned, and his body shifted, forming gills on his neck. He can turn into just about anything.  
What stands before us is supposed to be a younger version of him. Of course, he doesn't look exactly like he did five years ago but it's an accurate enough representation. I hand him a pair of my own jeans and a shirt. Ten minutes later, we're in the car and off to town.

"The people here are really friendly," Jay yawns as we get out of the car. Its early evening, and we only just got back to the house. The townspeople seemed to have been waiting for us to appear, and threw an impromptu welcome party. Apparently, we're the first people to have moved in from outside of town in a little over half a decade.  
I lift my hand and all of the clothes we just bought rise along with it. Telekinesis is a basic power that we all have, so I leave Neo and Jay to take care of the food.  
After unpacking and settling in, the three of us spend the next day exploring the woods around the house. Tomorrow is when the real fun begins, our first day of school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's as far as we get this time. I'm hoping to set up some semblance of an updating schedule, buuut I'm due to return to in-life school in a week, so things will probably be hectic for a while. Until next time, Sera.


	3. First day

POV: Nineteen/Neo  
  
_"Experiment thirteen was a success, prepare him for the next..."_  
_"Please, no, stop, it hurts..."_  
_"...Experiment forty two went well. Half an hour break."_  
_"And thus concludes the findings of experiment ninety three..."_  
_Bright lights, white coats, sharp metal, red blood, so much, it burns, it burns, it_ _ **burns,**_ _it burns it burns itburnsitburnsitburns-_  
  
My eyes snap open, breathing heavy. I can feel my hands shaking, violently. I glance over to my right. Thankfully, Ni- Isen, isn't in the room. It's a few minutes before I've calmed down enough to sit up. Another nightmare.  
"...fuck..."  
Today is our first day of school. I wonder if Twel- Jay is awake yet. As if he was waiting for the thought to cross my mind, the door slams open and Jay rushes in in a blur of pale pink hair and small teenager limbs.  
"Neoooo, time to get up! We have school today!"  
I'm glad to see that the sudden move hasn't affected Jay's ever present positive attitude. With the door now open, I can smell the food Isen is cooking, probably eggs.  
"I'll be down in a minute," I groan.  
The time reads 5:30am. School starts in an hour and a half. After a few seconds of concentration, I shift down to the smaller version of myself that we all agreed would suffice as the fourteen year old Neo that would be going to school, getting up to change.  
By the time I get downstairs, the food is ready and Jay is tucking into eggs and toast. Isen slides a plate over to me and I nod, before starting to eat.  
I've already packed our rucksacks by the door. A weeks worth of rations, a mini first aid kit, two changes of clothes, a map and compass, and in a hidden compartment, an extra set of fake identity papers. Who knows when we might have to leave?  
It's not long before we're out of the door. We're all dressed in short sleeves and jogging bottoms for the run to school. The dress code in this town for school is a lot more relaxed, presumably because it's small and quite an off the map, casual place.  
We've explored the woods well enough to know how to run the ten miles to school, since it's on the opposite side of town. I spend half a mile warming up, jogging at about thirty miles per hour, before maxing out into eighty miles an hour, leaving the other two behind me. Their maxes are lower, being younger, but I trust they'll make it to school safely.  
Eight minutes later, and I'm outside the school building. Isen turns up four minutes later, and Jay a minute after him. We spend the last fifty minutes showering in the changing rooms that a teacher pointed us towards, and, in my case, trying to wrangle my hair into something less messy than its current state. It doesn't work.  
By the time I've walked Jay back 50 yards to the elementary school where he'll be playing the role of a nine year old, there's a steady stream of casually clothed teenagers drifting into the school building.  
"Who's he?"  
"He must be from that family who moved in last Friday!"  
"I heard they don't have parents."  
"Who cares? He looks so hot!"  
"Girl, you know he can hear you?"  
"I should ask for his number!"  
This... is going to be a long day. Isen is standing next to a teacher, who smiles and waves at me when I approach. We're led up two flights and through a maze of corridors. I'm not worried about getting out of here if necessary, since I've memorized the way back, and Isen is more than capable of doing the same.  
He introduces himself as Mr Allon as we walk, and we introduce ourselves. We reach Class 5-1, as shown on the sign jutting out over the door, and he asks us to wait outside so he can calm the students down before we come in.  
I almost feel sorry for him when he sighs and opens the door to a cacophony of screams and shouts. The door slams shut and we wait outside for a few minutes.  
Despite the easy-going smile on his face, I can tell Isen is nervous. It never gets old, the fluttering feeling of nerves when walking into a room of complete strangers whose attention is solely focused on you. Just how many of those people we could put at risk or even, could they put us at risk?  
"You better not nearly call me Nineteen in class again this time," I mutter quietly.  
"Ughhhh," Isen groans despite the cheeky smile on his lips, "will you just drop that already?"  
The tension in his body eases again slightly as we bicker over nonsensical little things until the door slides open again and Mr Allon invites us in.  
The complete silence is a vast difference to the noise we heard before, and my respect for our new teacher goes up a little at being able to tame such a rowdy class.  
"Why don't you boys introduce yourselves?"  
Pretending not to hear the whispering of several girls a few metres away, I speak.  
"Hi. My name is Neo and this is my little brother Isen. We moved out of the city to get away from all the hustle and bustle for a while."  
An explosion of questions bursts forth and I almost wince at the sudden noise. Isen looks like he wants to cover his ears and I don't blame him. Even after all these years, it's hard to manage being able to hear far better than the average capabilities of a human. Not to mention how curious these students are as to why a couple of 'city boys', as we've been nicknamed, have decided to move.  
I just silently hope that Isen read the cover story brief and he's on the same page as he attempts to answer a few questions.  
"Okay class, that's enough," Mr Allon booms. Beside me, I hear Isen breathe a quiet sigh of relief as everyone quiets down.  
"Why don't you two take those seats at the back?" he continues.  
The classroom is set out with five rows of five desks, windows on the left side and a wall with shelves for books on the other. There's a sliding door at the front of the room and one at the back too.  
There are two empty seats, one in the very corner behind a girl with blonde hair and another on the front row nearest the door on the left. I take the one right at the back and Isen takes the one toward the front.  
The girl turns around to face me as I sit down, a mischievous grin on her face.  
"A word of advice. If you don't want to be swarmed by thirty curious fourteen year olds I suggest you get out of class as soon as the bell rings," she laughs quietly, turning back around before I get the chance to respond.  
I successfully manage to zone out until break, even managing to book it out of the class through the back door when the bell rings before anyone can question me. Isen is ahead of me. I almost have to stop to laugh when he makes it outside and scrambles up the tallest tree outside.  
I stop at the base with a breathy laugh, whilst he pouts from a branch above me. "Its either the tree, or thirty curious students," he announces with a grave expression. I look behind me to see a wave of them rushing outside. It must really be huge news for new people to move into town if they're so desperate to talk to us.  
I grab Isen's hand and he yanks me up. It's an entertaining enough experience, sitting on the highest branch and watching whilst the other students attempt to climb the tree and join us. They won't be able to make it, of course. The branches are far too unstable, and the only reason we haven't fallen is because I'm cushioning the branch we're sat on with air so it doesn't snap.  
"How the fuck can city boys climb better than the ones who literally live surrounded by trees?" someone exclaims.  
"Because they're freakin' light skinny twigs bro!" comes the answer.  
I think back to the rules I set for myself when we first started hiding; always watch your back; don't stay long enough for them to find you; don't get too close to strangers- anyone, absolutely anyone, can betray you; and don't, attract attention.  
I wonder if this would be considered attracting attention. If we keep it up, would I have to force the others back into the car and on the run again? A burst of laughter startles me out of the depressing idea, and I smile. Nine is grinning wildly as someone finally manages to make it halfway up the tree, before the branch snaps under his weight. I cushion the fall with a burst of wind that nobody except Isen would notice, watching the boy stand up safely.  
We moved over 1000 miles to get here and we haven't seen even a hint of them since long before that....maybe it's fine to attract a little attention. They deserve to have a little fun every once in a while.

**Author's Note:**

> The POV of the person speaking may change but I will note who it is speaking when the chapters begin or if it changes during the chapter. I hope you like it so far, although we won't be getting straight to the action.


End file.
